FROM THIS EPISODE

In Alabama and Mississippi yesterday, Mitt Romney came in third. If he can't capture the Southern conservative base of the party, why is he still the likely GOP nominee? Also, British Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed to the White House, and a shocking public resignation from a high-level figure at Goldman Sachs.

Banner image: Jay Danny Cooper urges Alabama residents to vote in the primary along the side of a highway March 13, 2012 in Birmingham, Alabama. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Mitt Romney is lucky there were two other candidates in Mississippi and Alabama, even though he lost to them both. One alone would have swamped him. But, including Hawaii and American Samoa, he got more delegates yesterday than either Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum, who won both primaries and is claiming to be the real, conservative alternative to Romney. Even though Romney's a loser with the conservative base of his party, he's still the favorite to win the GOP nomination. Does that mean the South doesn't matter? Will Santorum's double win push Gingrich out of the running? Does Romney still have a chance to prevail before the convention in Tampa?

Greg Smith worked at Goldman Sachs for 12 years, managed a trillion dollars in assets and was part of the firm's recruiting process. In today's New York Times, he announced his resignation, saying the current leadership has destroyed the culture he once believed in. Lamenting that Goldman Sachs no longer "revolves around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility and always doing right by our clients," Smith hopes today's op-ed will be a "wake-up call to the board of directors." Christine Harper has covered the company for six years as chief financial correspondent for Bloomberg News.

President Obama welcomed British Prime Minister Cameron to the White House today, after they watched an NCAA basketball last night in Ohio. At today's news conference, Cameron claimed "tangible progress in Afghanistan," but a British reporter said people in both countries aren't buying that. Admitting that his administration had focused early attention on Iraq, Obama asserted that he would have preferred to "getting Afghan strategy right...but that's not the cards we were dealt." David Rennie is political editor for the Economist magazine and writes the column, Bagehot's notebook.